Always on the Move

"He's leaving,
On that midnight train to Georgia,
And he's goin' back
To a simpler place and time."
--Gladys Knight

I am returning for five days to Georgia to be in the wedding of one of my best friends, but by bus and plane as opposed to a train.  It has been five months since I left, and I can't even imagine how strange it is going to be to see trees and grass everywhere, and to have everyone speak English.  The week will undoubtedly exhaust me, and I already have two weekends of travel behind me from which I've yet to fully recuperate (or even partially recuperate, for that matter.) 
 I was sitting at lunch with my host mom and host sister-in-law the other day about to leave for the weekend to Antofagasta.  Claudia, the sister-in-law, told me that she had been talking with Carlos, my eldest host brother, the other day and that he had said with a sigh that he wished for one week that he could be me because I am always traveling.  In Antofagasta, I got to talking with some of the other volunteers stationed there and it began to become aparent that Ryan and I are by far the most traveled individuals in our region, and maybe out of the whole 8 month group.  We have been to every noteworthy area in Región II, some places multiple times, and seldom a weekend passes that we are actually in Calama.  Part of this is out of necessity, no doubt, but it does occur to me that I have been nursing an inherent wanderlust that infected me the moment I left the States for the first time.

The weekend before the Antofagasta trip we had returned to Iquique for the weekend (it was Ryan's fourth time and my third) where we stayed in the same amazing hostel and had probably the best time yet, at least on my part.  The weekend was marked by our meeting of two dutch girls, Anne and Eli, and their 19 year old Viennese companion named Georg.  We became quick friends and spent the weekend with them (among others, including your usual assortment of Aussies, Brits, and Chileans from the south.)  However, to recount the entire experience would be impossible, or at the very least would fill up a blog by itself and still be lacking.  Thus, I will not try to recount everything, but simply proffer an anecdotal summary.
Minutes after meeting the three, we dove into a deep religious discussion where I found myself explaining Christianity only to have that night end somewhere around six in the morning packed in a stranger's truck with four other people (9 total, including the girl who works at the hostel who knows us by name now) driving home from a dance club.  The next night was sheer madness.  Ryan and I returned from having our minds blown by Inception (best movie of the year, at the very least) and took a nap.  Anne storms in around seven that evening, already drunk, and forced us out of bed screaming, "Is this a *expletive* joke?"  We proceeded to spend the rest of the very, very long night pulling her from traffic, picking her off of supermarket floors, and explaining to a bouncer at the club, in Spanish, that she hadn't fallen in front of the door, she had just stooped down to pet a dog.  The next morning she was bright and chipper as though nothing had happened.

I was understandably exhausted upon our return to Calama, but proceeded to have an excellent week teaching.  Very soon I hope to post about my new semester, as it has been a far-and-away improvement from the previous four months. That next weekend, in Antofagasta, the program was hosting a public speaking competition for octavo students (eighth grade) and as such, there was a convergence of volunteers on the port city.  I teach in a pure high school and was not part of the competition, sadly, but I left that morning after class to meet everyone for the weekend.  Vanessa had come up from Tatal and we spent the weekend with Matt, Lorna, and one of the new five-monthers, Emmy, who is teaching in Tocopilla (a small, ugly fishing/mining village a north of Antofa.)  We also met up with our Mexican friend Monjiuth, as well as Camilu (who, if you'll recall, I first met in Tatal.)  Saturday, we gringos went about an hour north to the small, tranquil fishing village of Mejillones where we hung out on the beach and ate a most incredible seafood feast.  That night, Emmy continued on north to Tocopilla and we returned to Antofagasta to attend a birthday asado with Camilu.

Matt, Ryan, and I retired early from the party because we were exhausted, bidding farewell to Vanessa and Camilu and heading back to his apartment.  The next day, one of Ryan's teachers in Calama who has family and an apartment in Antofa invited us over for lunch.  We spent the day with Walterio, as he is called, and his son.  He drove us around to show us the sites, and we stopped at this amazing seaside restaurant where he bought us empanadas de mariscos which are filled with all sorts of delicious sea creatures such as octopus, abalones, and limpets.  He even took us to the bus station so we could refund our tickets as he was dead set on us riding back to Calama with him in his SUV.  It was a most excellent weekend, all in all, but I returned that night to Calama completely worn out with the task of packing for my return trip to the States still ahead of me.  However, si Dios quiere, I will spend the next week in my homeland and return again to the desert for another three months.  My friends here don't think I'll come back...vamos a ver.